Customers of businesses, such as financial institutions or the like, that have many customer service outlets, otherwise referred to as centers, branches or the like, have come to expect that when they visit any of the service outlets, the service outlet will have the immediate capability to address their particular special needs or services. However, as businesses such as financial institutions streamline their operations for the sake of efficiency, they have come to realize that round-the-clock location of specialists at each service outlet/center is inefficient. For example, in the financial institution setting, if each banking center employs at least one full-time mortgage/loan specialist, a full-time small business specialist and/or a full-time personal financial advisor/specialist, the specialist may only be called upon in regards to their specialty in the event a customer visits the banking center requiring assistance in the area of specialty.
Certain businesses, such as financial institutions and the like, have addressed the problem associated with staffing service outlets with full-time specialists by implementing video conferencing systems. Specifically, such video conferencing systems may employ two-way video conferencing communication between a customer, who is located at the service outlet/banking center, and a specialist, who is located remote from the service outlet/center, such that both customer and specialist receive audio and video feeds of the other participant. Alternatively, a one-way video conferencing system provides the customer a video and audio feed of a remote specialist, while the remote specialist is limited to receiving an audio feed from the customer. Such video conferencing systems are set-up in private settings within the business to provide the customer assurance that the information exchanged during the communication session is held in private. In this regard, a customer service outlet/center equipped with video conferencing communication can provide customers on-demand access to specialists having different areas of specialty/expertise without requiring the full-time physical presence of the specialist at the business outlet/center.
In certain instances, it becomes apparent that a customer that is participating in a video conferencing communication session or any other media-based communication requires further assistance, such as from another specialist, either another specialist of the same specialty or another specialist of a different specialty (i.e., a different line-of-business or the like). Additionally, the further assistance that may be required may be some form of self-service assistance, in which the customer need not rely on communication with another business associate or specialist. In such instances, the further assistance may require the customer to transfer from one communication source to another source (e.g., from a video communication mechanism to a tablet device, personal computer device or the like.)
Currently, in the video conferencing environment the options for transferring/transitioning the customer are rather limited; either the specialist that is communicating with the customer can provide the customer a referral (i.e., provide the name of a an associate/specialist who may or may not be located at the banking center where the customer is currently located), or the specialist can instruct the customer to exit the current video conference communication session and, subsequently re-dial or initiate a new video conference communication session with the other specialist. However, both options result in ineffective customer service. Both the referral process and the initiation of a new video conference communication session create undesirable time delay and efficiencies in the communication between the customer and the business. Such time delay is not only burdensome to the customer but, from the business perspective, also poses a serious threat to lost business opportunities. From the inefficiency perspective, since both the referral process and the initiation of a new video conference communication session result in a communication disconnect, any information shared with the initial specialist, private or otherwise, is not readily susceptible to being shared or otherwise available to the subsequent specialist.
Moreover, when transferring a customer between specialists or amongst different communication platforms the business may want to insure that the customer's needs are met and/or that the cost-effective source of communication is used upon transfer.
Therefore, a need exists to develop systems, apparatus, methods, computer program products and the like that provide for assisting in the seamless transfer of a customer when transitioning between specialists and/or amongst different communication sources. The desired aspects should alleviate problems related to disconnects and/or time delays associated with a customer requiring communication with another specialist and/or communication source/mechanism. In addition, the desired systems, apparatus, methods, computer program products and the like should allow for customer information, private or otherwise, to be readily shared amongst specialists so as to eliminate the need of the customer to communicate information to a subsequent specialist that was previously communicated to the first specialist. Moreover, the desired aspects should address the need to determine, and provide, the level of service (i.e., the appropriate specialist and/or appropriate communication source) required by the customer when communicating with the subsequent on-site business knowledge source (i.e., specialist, communication source, business application or the like), so as to meet the expectations of the customer while balancing cost effectiveness on behalf of the business.